


That Which We Love

by FireCharmer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Nat and Clint, Natasha doesnt die, Trust and Friendship, is fluff, ship if you squint, soul stone is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26152753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireCharmer/pseuds/FireCharmer
Summary: To get the soul stone, we must sacrifice that which we love...but there is no way in hell Clint Barton is letting his partner jump off that cliff for a shiny rock.As they say in Budapest...together or not at all.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 12





	That Which We Love

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't supposed to be Clint x Nat, because I really love their friendship as it is, a beautiful, deep, trusting, friendship and that's how I wrote it, but its fanfic its up to you.

Under different circumstances, this would be totally awesome."

Natasha shot a wry glance towards Clint, who was staring in awe down the side of the very tall mountain. 

"I bet the raccoon didn't have to climb a mountain," she muttered, only half joking. Trust their luck to draw the Soul Stone, and the mountain that came with it.

Clint chuckled. "You know, technically, he's not a raccoon."

Natasha scoffed, quickly climbing the last few steps to the top of the mountain. "Whatever, he eats garbage." 

Clint gave her a look, but whatever cynical remark he had intended was lost.

"Welcome."

Instantly, the two agents instinctively tensed into defensive positions, drawing their weapons. Before them was...the best word to describe it was ghoul, Natasha decided, repulsion writhing inside her. A ghost with a red, wrinkled face, cloaked in tattered black rags, drifting slowly towards them.

Well, this was straight out of a sci-fi movie.

"Natasha, daughter of Ivan," the ghoul greeted, and Natasha stiffened in shock. "Clint, son of Edith."

"Who are you?" Natasha asked.

It almost seemed to smile. "Consider me a guide. To you, and to all those who seek the Soul Stone."

"Oh, good," Natasha answered tightly. "Why don't you tell us where it is, and we'll be on our way." 

"Ah, liebchen..." the ghoul said wistfully. "If only it were that easy." 

Of course it wasn't that easy. Usually, there wasn't a tour guide at the ready to lead you to a priceless, powerful infinity stone. Warily, Natasha and Clint followed the ghoul as he led them towards the other side of the plateau, towards the cliff. 

It was a long way down. The rocky cliffside was made up of long, pointed stalactites that only added to the foreboding aura. The place almost seemed to glow with a blood red light that sent shivers down Natasha's spine. She'd gone on countless missions, for SHIELD and otherwise, each more difficult and stranger than the last. This...this eerie cliffside on an abandoned planet in space...this was a whole new arena. 

"What you seek lies in front of you...as does what you fear," the ghoul announced. 

"The soul stone is down there," Natasha realized. 

"For one of you," the ghoul agreed. "For the other..." there was a pause. "In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul for a soul."

Oh. 

As the full meaning of the ghouls words sunk in, Natasha slowly raised her head to exchange a glance with Clint. She wondered if he saw the same horror in her face that she saw in his.

"How's it going?" Clint waved over casually at the ghoul who, as ghouls usually do, only stared ominously back. Clint shook his head. "Jesus...maybe he's making this shit up." 

Natasha slowly shook her head, eyes still focused on the blood red skyline. "No...I don't think so."

"Why?" Clint asked skeptically. "Because he knows your Daddy's name?"

"I didn't."

There was a short silence.

"Thanos left here with the stone...and without his daughter," Natasha said finally. "Its not a coincidence. 

"Yeah." 

Natasha looked up at Clint...her friend, her first friend, her best friend, her partner, and the one person she trusted more than anyone in the world. "Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes," he agreed softly.

She got to her feet. "If we don't get that stone, billions of people stay dead." 

"Then I guess we both know who its gotta be," Clint said, still in perfect agreement.

Except he wasn't. "I guess we do."

He took her hands, and she saw tears sparkling in his eyes. "I'm starting to think we mean different people here...Natasha."

She shook her head...he didn't understand. "For the last five years, I've been trying to do one thing. Get to right here. That's all its been about...bringing everybody back."

"Don't you get all decent on me now," Clint rasped, tightening his hold on her hands, refusing to let her go. 

"What, you think I wanna do it?" Natasha asked. It was meant to be angry and cold, but her voice was thickened by tears. "I'm trying to save your life, you idiot." 

"And I don't want you to, because I...Natasha, you know what I've done," he said weakly. "You know what I've become." 

"I know I don't judge people on their worst mistakes," Natasha said firmly.

"Maybe you should."

She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. "You didn't." 

"You're a pain in my ass, you know that?"

She didn't answer.

"Don't even think about it," he said softly, feeling her try to pull away. "You know I'd never let you."

"We have to bring back the Stone," she murmured, shaking her head. "This is the only way."

"Is it?" He asked sharply. "An everlasting exchange...that's what the floating guy said." 

"Which means we need to give something."

"Which means that he needs to give something back," Clint said. 

Natasha frowned, stopping short for a moment. What was that supposed to mean?

"That’s how an exchange works," Clint asked. He was moving now, walking towards the edge of the cliff...but he hadn't released Natasha's hand. "Isn't it? Whatever we give him, he needs to give something back, and he's got only one thing to offer." 

The ghoul was watching them, Natasha could feel his gaze, but he was too far away to hear Clint, too far away to notice the dawning realization on her face. 

"No..." she pulled back. "That's...you really want to take that risk?"

"I'm not risking anything," Clint insisted. "Natasha, I'm not leaving this place alone, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you throw yourself off a cliff for a piece of rock. And I think you feel the same. There's only one way either of us are leaving." He paused. "And God knows we're both stubborn as hell."

It was selfish, to take such a risk. Risking the fate of the world for their own heartbreak. But at that moment, in this place of eternal sunset, a place that seemed without change or time, there was only one person that Natasha cared about in the universe, and he was holding her hand. 

One last mission. They'd sworn once that they'd end it together.

"You ready?" He asked her softly. 

Clint Barton, you absolute idiot. How is it that I'm willing to sacrifice anything for you?

"Yes."

They were still holding hands when they jumped. 

It wasn't the color of blood, Natasha realized, it wasn't even red. It was orange...like the color of a setting sun. It wasn't violent pain and desperate fear. It was smooth, and serene...a sunset. Not a bloody, painful death, but a quiet slipping out of existence. 

We're inside the Soul Stone, she realized belatedly. We...she turned to see Clint, still standing by her side, hand in hers, squeezing her fingers as tightly as he had before they had jumped. 

Had it worked? They had paid the price, now the Soul Stone had to give something back, it had to fulfill the exchange. Any moment now, she was sure, they'd be back at the bottom of the mountain, Soul Stone in hand...

"Clint?" She asked softly, uncertainly, glancing towards him. Her partner's gaze was fixed determinedly, rigidly ahead, and now he pointed, so that she followed his gaze.

"Look."

There were people ahead of them, but their features were blurred, as if Natasha was looking at them through a foggy window. Still, she knew exactly who they were. A young, red-haired assassin, staring defiantly back at a man with a bow, of all things, strung on his back...a SHIELD agent, sent to kill her.

"Look, I can do this all day. You don't have to talk, I've got plenty to say...lots more stories to tell. You don't need to look so tense, you know, I'm not going to hurt you..."

The words were already ingrained in Natasha's mind, from all those years ago, but she heard them as well, and she knew Clint did too. He'd been sent to kill her, but he'd given her another chance instead. For days, he'd sat with her, telling the stupidest jokes, the most random stories, unthreatening, casual, even when he'd woken up one night with her gun pointed at his head. He'd seen a person inside her that even Natasha herself had lost, and saved her. 

And then one day...she watched it through the fog even as she remembered it...he'd taken her hand and walked out with her. He'd taken her back to SHIELD, introduced her to Director Fury himself as SHIELD'S newest recruit, and that had been that. Somehow, Clint Barton had taken a monster and drawn out the fragile creature inside, without ever striking a blow. How he'd done it, Natasha wasn't sure, but she knew she could never thank him enough. Neither could she have ever let him jump alone. 

"Its beautiful, isn't it?" 

The image faded away, and Natasha looked down to see a child standing before them. A dirty child, mud and grit clinging to her dark skin, her black curls a mess, her dress mere rags pinned to her body. She couldn't have been more than eight, but she seemed familiar, somehow...

"Hanna," Clint said suddenly, in sudden recognition. Then Natasha recognized her as well.

Budapest had been a wild ride, nearly a disaster...but there was one part that just barely clung to her memory. A little girl, sitting by a street corner, starving, huddled into a shivering ball. Natasha had almost walked by; there had been hundreds of starving people on those streets, but Clint had stopped. Why for her, and not the others, Natasha wasn't sure. Perhaps she was his breaking point, the last horrible sight he could stand. Perhaps it had been because she was alone. Perhaps just because he was Clint Barton.

They were in the middle of a crucial mission. The emergency food they carried was running low, as was their time to complete the mission. But Clint had sat down beside her, this little scrap of a thing, and offered her a granola bar, the last of his emergency rations. He'd told her everything was going to be alright. She'd thanked him, and told him her name.

Hanna. 

Now the girl's face broke into a gleeful smile. "You remembered!" She said happily. 

"What.." Clint choked on his words. "What are you doing here?"

The child's face grew solemn. "Everyone sees me different, though its usually a child. People trust children more, I think. Someone they know won't hurt them."

"Who are you?"

She didn't answer that. "It's an exchange. I make it a trade because the Soul Stone is so powerful." Her speech was half poetic, half the simple words of a child. "If someone really, really needs the Stone, it has to be for a good reason. It has to be for the greater good...only those people are willing to give up the person they love most." She paused. "But you didn't. You jumped together." 

"And ruined our chance to save the world," Clint noted. He laughed humorlessly. "Selfish of us, wasn't it?"

"Some might say so," Hanna agreed. "Others might call it love, the greatest act of love anyone can offer. A deep lying trust that stretched through time." She waved towards the empty space where their younger selves had been portrayed. "I think that's a very beautiful thing." 

Neither of them spoke...what was there to say? Natasha wasn't sure she could speak anyhow, her throat was too tight, and words seemed so meaningless. Instead, she squeezed Clint's hand tighter, and she felt him squeeze back.

Hanna laughed. "It was a clever trick. I never thought of it. And it was something very beautiful, and I like beautiful things. Sunsets are nice...but they do get boring, every once in a while. So, thank you for that." She waved at them. "You can go back now." 

The glowing orange light of the sun grew brighter and brighter, threatening to swallow them...and then it did. It engulfed them both like a mother's gentle embrace. As everything faded, Natasha thought she could still hear Hanna's sigh.

They awoke in a pool of rippling water, with Vormir's everlasting sunset glowing softly in the distance. They were in the shade however, the shade of the great mountain, so the water was cool, and soothing.

Natasha opened her eyes, and sat up to look at Clint. They were still holding hands.

Ever so slowly, she released his fingers, which she was sure were as numb as hers by now. 

There, in the palms of their clasped hands, was a shining orange stone.


End file.
